THE STATE OF THE CHURCH (2008)

Over the years I’ve become accustomed to the practice of preparing my annual report in the form of a “State of the Church” sermon, which I generally deliver at the Sunday worship service on the morning of the Annual Meeting. This year, for a variety of reasons, that is not going to happen; but I thought that I would at least try to preserve a little of the tradition by retaining a more “inspirational” tone to my report, rather than merely recounting a lot of events and statistics.

Obviously, this has been a very unusual year -- certainly not something that any of us anticipated or planned for. And yet it has also turned out to be a remarkable year, and has led this congregation in new directions and to develop new competencies that have both stretched us, and also revealed the underlying strength and resilience and creativity of this community as a whole. We ARE the church people believe we are. And having seen this now with our own eyes, it is much easier to believe it ourselves.

We began this past program year with four broad themes that were to be our priorities for the past 12 months. These areas have all evolved and been more carefully defined in that time; here is my sense of where we have come, and where we are headed now.


“A WARM & WELCOMING PLACE IN THE HEART OF THE CITY”

I want this idea so closely associated with First Parish that people can’t think of one without immediately thinking of the other. Every good thing that we want to happen in our church follows from greater attendance and participation, and these in turn are driven by the effectiveness of our “Ministry of Hospitality” -- the manner in which we both welcome visiting newcomers into our “church home,” and also our ability to inspire our current members to attend more frequently and participate more deeply than perhaps they have in the recent past. We’ve made a fantastic start in the right direction (and of course we will never achieve perfection), but we also still have a pretty long way to go before I’m satisfied. The good news is that now we are in a position of building on strength rather than trying to overcome our shortcomings. But I’m told the change is palpable. People have noticed the difference: in our greeting, in our worship, in our general level of excitement and enthusiasm and activity on Sunday morning. So, let’s keep up the good work and do a lot more of the same!

I saw in the newspaper the other day that we are a congregation of 140 members, 100 or so of which tend to show up in church on any given Sunday. The point I would like to make is that we can double this number, and still double it again, and probably again, without losing that personal known-by-name sensibility that makes membership in a faith community so significantly fulfilling. When it comes to “marketing” the church, we are NOT looking for better techniques of appearing personal while being impersonal! We are looking for more effective ways of creating and nurturing authentic relationships one person at a time, within a broad and diverse network of shared values and activities. And it all begins with our attendance and experience at Public Worship, and grows from there. It is driven by participation, and face-to-face interaction, and our willingness to take a genuine interest in other people, and to open ourselves and our lives to them as well.

It’s important to understand that membership in a church means different things to different people at different points in their lives. It means one thing when you are a child, and quite another when you have children of your own. You might be a young single person living in the city and trying to establish yourself in a career, or empty nesters looking for meaningful and fulfilling ways to fill your time now that you have a little time for yourselves. Perhaps you are recently married, or recently divorced; starting a new job or retiring from one. You or a loved one could be facing a serious illness, and suddenly in need of a faith community again after a long time away. Or perhaps you are a longtime member of the church whose circumstances prevent you from being as “active” as you once were able to be in the past, but who still appreciates being connected though visits from friends and written copies of the sermons.

If it seems to you that we are focusing a lot of our attention on Newcomers, it’s because the needs of Newcomers often tend to drive the development of new programs, which everyone else is then obviously free to benefit from as well. But we need to achieve “A” grades in all these areas if we want to fulfill our full potential as a church. Show up, get involved, bring your friends. That’s the way to grow a church, and it’s also the best path for growing our own individual spiritual lives as well.

BUILDING A RAINBOW 2.0

I’ve written a lot more about this topic on April 29, so I won’t try to repeat all that information here. But just like every other church I’ve ever served, this church has budget challenges, and we are working hard to meet them in ways that are responsible, sustainable, and allow us to effectively carry out our mission as a faith community. I am VERY pleased by the reorganization and emergence of a truly broad-based Finance Council charged with the responsibility of figuring out how we can achieve our dreams and still live within our means. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to happen overnight. But I have faith that it will happen, because I have a LOT of confidence in the members of this church; and am truly delighted that the Trustees have agreed (at least for the time being) NOT to replace the patch in the Meetinghouse ceiling until we have accomplished our goal. Sometimes it’s nice to have a tangible reminder of the distance we have to travel. And a specific event to celebrate at the end of the journey.

In its more than 300 years of existence, First Parish has worked through a variety of different financial models in order to pay its bills and balance its budget. Until 1820, when the Maine Constitutional Convention meeting at First Parish voted to disestablish civil religion and create a separation of Church and State, First Parish was a tax-supported part of the Standing Order of Churches in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Local taxpayers set the budgets and paid their own assessments both for the upkeep of the Meetinghouse and the support of the minister. Shortly after disestablishment, the Meetinghouse was privatized (essentially the pews were sold as condominiums) and a Religious Society was organized to handle the business affairs of the congregation itself; while in the early part of the 20th century the so-called “Proprietors of the Pews” placed their financial interests in a Trust for the benefit of the congregation as a whole, and especially the preservation and maintenance of the Meetinghouse itself.

Since that time, First Parish has essentially supported itself through the same four broad sources of revenue. The first, obviously, is income from the Endowment Funds, which over the years have increased considerably both through additional bequests and normal growth in the financial markets. The second source of revenue has been rental of our building to outside groups in need of the kind of public space we can offer. Providing this space to others is also part of our mission as a public institution, so in many instances this particular revenue stream is pretty much a break-even proposition. A third source of revenue are public fun(d)raising activities like fairs, concerts, and the like -- which again serve multiple purposes in regard to creating deeper connections among ourselves, and developing important outreach links into our larger community, but provide a relatively small percentage of our overall operating budget. Far and away our most important source of revenue is direct financial contributions by our members and friends, which we solicit from one another in the form of pledges during our annual Stewardship Campaign.

A pledge is basically just a promise -- as well as a planning tool which the church uses to estimate how much money we will have to spend on salaries, utilities and various other church programs over the course of our fiscal year. And yes, we are literally counting on people to keep their promises in order to meet our obligations; in fact, we are hoping they will exceed them. But we also understand that circumstances sometimes change, and that no single individual’s pledge, no matter how large or small, will ultimately make or break our budget. Rather, it requires the generosity of us all, each of us doing what we can, to allow us together to achieve what we dream of as a faith community.

Our pledges are not just promises we make to one another; they are promises we make to ourselves. They are the tangible expression of our gratitude for the many gifts the Universe has given to us, and our desire to become more generous souls in our own right. Finally, they represent the direct "hands on" voluntary financial support of our shared belief that this church and its work are important. They reflect our willingness to trust and count on one another, even though we can’t always predict or control every little circumstance of life.

It’s been my experience that churches never really seem to have enough money to do everything they dream of doing, but that in a pinch they always seem to come up with what they need to do what they must. And it may well be that First Parish will never again enjoy a truly “balanced” budget -- that we will always be living just a little beyond our means, in the hope and with faith in one another that we will somehow manage to catch up before the bill collectors catch up with us. But my desire is that the approach outlined in Rainbow 2.0 will help us all to think carefully about our mission and budget priorities as a congregation, while working together to cut those ‘dark red’ expenses that keep us from funding the pink, the green, and the blue. This will also help us to think about new ways to maximize EACH of our revenue streams (and perhaps even create some new ones), by building on that same sense of trust, mission and shared purpose cultivated during the development of our spending plan.


“PORTLAND’S ORIGINAL FAITH COMMUNITY”

I like this phrase because of its overlapping connotations:

We were the First -- the Original.

We stand at the Historic Center of this Community, and continue to embody that public heritage today.

We are Innovative: we stand out as community leaders by courageously embracing the new and the progressive.

But mostly I like it because it expresses a good reputation I’d like us to live up to. It expresses the responsibility of “becoming the Church people believe we are.”

If becoming “A Warm & Welcoming Place in the Heart of the City” expresses our desire for greater attendance and numerical growth, then owning the identity of “Portland’s Original Faith Community” reflects what might be thought of as “Incarnational Growth” -- a growth in our effectiveness to deliver on what we promise by developing greater skills and a trained team of leaders who have the ability to bring us together to achieve a common purpose. It also reflects the all-important paradigm shift from “finding enough people to fill all the jobs” to finding an appropriate job for every person. Again, I’ve written about this extensively elsewhere and won’t try to repeat it all here. But I hope that in the coming year we can continue to build upon this aspect of our ministry as well, by recruiting and training more Small Group Ministry facilitators, by expanding our Care-Ring Circle and teams of Parish Visitors, by growing our Faith in Action Program and Life Long Learning opportunities, and of course continuing to build our Religious Education and Music programs. These things are not going to happen overnight. But if we are deliberate and intentional about making them happen, by “matching our own deep yearning to the worlds deep need,” we will make continuous improvement and progress toward our goal.


"NEXT STEP"

Notwithstanding everything else that has happened in my life these past 12 months, perhaps my greatest single institutional disappointment is that we were not able to execute our “Next Step” option this past Spring. I’m still not certain how much detail I am allowed to disclose in public, since we still have other options open to us and are actively exploring them. But I also continue to believe that this was and is the correct vision for the future of First Parish, and want to both thank and congratulate the Next Step team who have worked so hard these past few years to bring this project to fruition. One of the great things about being a 334 year old institution is that we can afford to be patient and take our time. And in the meantime, we continue to move forward by building a solid foundation beneath our "castle in the air."

One very serendipitous step forward in this regard was the collaboration between the Trustees and the Society in creating a new fully-ADA standard handicapped-accessible bathroom on the main floor of the Parish House. Not was this project long overdue, but it came (for me at least) at just the right time. One next step now might be to look at making similar modifications in the basement of the Parish House -- both to increase the ease of wheelchair access through the side alley door, and also the general attractiveness of Freshman Alley in general. By working with the city and our neighbors at 415 Congress, we can at least attempt to transform that very visible and public space into something that we can feel proud of, rather than the current eyesore of dumpsters, concrete barriers, cigarette butts and graffiti. It's not everything we'd hoped for. But at least it is a start.


CONCLUDING THOUGHT(S)

One of the most important lessons my illness is trying to teach me is that the goal is always "Progress, not Perfection." Although many of the things we are attempting to achieve together are relatively simple and straightforward, that doesn't necessarily mean we will automatically accomplish what we set out to do without a few twists and turns along the way. But if we can stay focused on these four core areas: community outreach, fiscal accountability, leadership development, and a clear long range vision, we can avoid the temptation of being distracted by the merely "urgent," and maintain our essential focus on the truly important. This is especially true, at least for the moment, in the leadership development area. For various reasons, we have a lot of vacancies to fill right now, both on the staff and in key volunteer positions. These are both aspects of the same challenge -- and in both situations, the solution is to FIND THE RIGHT PERSON FOR THE RIGHT JOB, rather than merely trying to fill an empty chair with a warm body. I also believe that the right talent we need is already in this congregation, and that much of this matching process is simply a matter of helping our current leadership team figure out how their current skills, interests, and personal availability match up to the perceived institutional needs of the church itself. This process of discernment is not going to happen overnight, nor are we likely to find the leaders we most need now among people who are relatively new to the church and Unitarian Universalism themselves. But we do need to create